My husband was gone for the weekend, so that meant two things: I was eating out, and something in the house was going to break.
Every time he leaves, a household appliance breaks or goes haywire.
This time, it started with the garage door. I had our sweet 15-month-old granddaughter, Kennedy, and we had just come back from sharing a nice strawberry-
chicken salad for lunch (thus, the eating out).
The garage door wouldn’t open more than a few inches. I tried it a couple of times, then gave up and parked in the driveway in the hot sun.
We’ve got a lot of extra furniture and stuff in our garage right now for various reasons, waiting for the right time for a garage sale — actually, waiting for me to have time to price it all.
I figured some random toy or box got in the way of the sensor to raise the garage door. We went inside through the front door and through the house to the garage. When I pushed the button, I heard a pop. The spring was sprung.
I was just glad my car wasn’t trapped inside when it happened. Although my husband said I could have raised the door manually, I wouldn’t have enjoyed doing that at all.
He said he’d call the garage-door people on Monday.
While he was off playing in a golf tournament, I was having more fun. I was playing blocks, reading books aloud and pushing a stroller with Kennedy.
One of her favorite toys was our older son’s when he was a toddler — a McDonald’s Happy Meal. It’s a little plastic box with a plastic hamburger patty, bun, pickles, french fries and a “funny flute,” an apple pie that makes music. (Note: She’s never had a real Happy Meal in her life.)
The hamburger was missing (where’s the beef?), and when I told Kennedy, she started looking under furniture. She knows the drill. Something is always rolling under a piece of furniture.
It occurred to me to look under the cushions of my furniture, and I found the meat under a chair cushion.
Kennedy was running around pretending to eat the bread before I found the hamburger meat. When I put it all back in the Happy Meal box, we were missing one half of the bun.
I looked everywhere — under furniture, in the recycling, in the laundry basket, in cabinets where she was playing, in the bathtub, under couch cushions. It’s just gone.
Thinking she might have shoved the bun under the washing machine or it might have rolled there, I tried to Swiffer under it and could barely get the apparatus beneath the machine. I started pulling the washer out from the wall and was appalled at the dirt underneath it — large tufts of dust, dog treats, cat food, a penny and a metal spring — and the floor was covered with an oily residue, which wasn’t right.
I cleaned the floor, and then, of course, I had my husband pull out the dryer. He got the vacuum, and I went to town cleaning.
He said he’d call the washing-machine repairman after he called the garage-door repairman.
Do not tell me things happen in threes. I just don’t believe in that. I read an article one time that explained that people like to group things together, so they sort of make that work out.
Yes, my garage door was broken. Yes, my washing machine needs work.
Everything else seems to be working fine.
But I’m still missing the hamburger bun. And come to think of it, I can’t find a pair of earrings and my good glasses. Uh-oh.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.